Lazy Black Men? Or Greedy, Clueless Neoliberals?

In this op-ed, Cynthia Tucker argues that black men are just as lazy as the media portrays them. Her evidence? "I was to find men willing to help [a contractor] paint, lift, scrape, fill, dig. The pay was hardly exorbitant — $6 an hour. But it seemed reasonable for unskilled labor." Surprisingly, almost nobody but undocumented Mexicans were willing to do that work for those wages. Those lazy, greedy black men!

Since when is $6 an hour an appropriate wage for that kind of work? I used to paint houses during summers and made at least twice that, five years ago.

What's more, only an offensively clueless member of the bourgeoisie would call painting houses unskilled labor. I could see if it was picking strawberries or, I dunno, moving rocks or something, but painting is a trade.

Very sweet of her to exploit the depressed wages of undocumented workers, then throw her hands in the air and publicly blame, first, black men, and, second, "globalization." What about her individual role in this race to the bottom?

Tags: news and politics, immigration, economics, labor